​In 2013 I entered "Spontaneous Combustion" in Earth, Fire & Fibre XXIX, a biennial exhibition at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. I'd missed the deadline 2 years prior, when my children were 3 and 5 years old. At the time, missing a deadline had felt like one of so many small failures.

I'd sobbed on the living room floor and told my husband I felt some train barreling towards me and the greatest fear wasn't that it would run me over, but that it would pass right by. Melodramatic? Yes. Hormone induced? Yes. Authentic? Totally.

So I drove all of that emotion into this piece.And entered two years later.And won a prize.And the museum purchased that work.​

I waited 13 years to have children. I had two careers, completed three degrees, read all those birthing books before they came into my life. ​

But no one could tell me how sleep deprivation would affect me personally, or what part of the hormonally-laced spectrum I would slide along after giving birth -- a froth of postpartum anxiety with a sprinkle of postpartum OCD? That sounds about right.

​It's all here, in every stitch.​

My parents hadn't seen the piece in person and this was the third time I'd made an appointment to bring them to the museum for a visit. I cancelled the first visit when my mother returned from Sweden with pneumonia and couldn't travel to Alaska from the Lower 48. I cancelled the second when my grandmother in Sweden passed away.

Most of the original handwork in this piece came from women in Sweden -- great aunts, a grandmother, a great grandmother -- all gone now. To cut into their work felt sacrilegious one second and cathartic the next. My son and daughter drew all of the images around the border, easily four generations of my family have contributed to this piece.

​It's a time capsule.​

Dad.

It's held in the safest place it could possibly reside.​

It's hidden from light, from temperature and humidity fluctuations, from my future teenagers who will decide to have a house party featuring all shades of vomit. It's rolled, right side out, around a cushioned bolster wrapped in Tyvek -- a paper-like, polyethylene olefin material that repels moisture and dust, with a slick surface that won't snag fabrics or degrade over time. Since we're nerding out here, you should know that Tyvek can be sewn into bag forms or wrapped around costume hangars or furniture, too. (If you are interested in this material and how conservators use it, you can learn more about it in a post by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which describes the four-year-long rehousing of their costume and textile collection. You could also purchase a 50-yard roll of Tyvek through University Products if you have a little froth of anxiety or sprinkle of OCD, yourself.

As a woman, it's difficult to talk about my early mothering experience without feeling judged, but as an artist, I mine this cave to its depths.

Frankly, artists get judged all the time ... and sometimes they win prizes.

Mothers -- parents -- should receive more prizes, too.​

* * *​If you want to learn more about the process of making "Spontaneous Combustion," you can read A history of fire, part 1 and part 2. The Histories category in the blog side bar will take you to a series of other process posts about my work, with a smattering of visual how-to.

This piece is so moving and I loved reading about it from your perspective. You're so right about the amazing aspect of art to mind the depths of whatever it is we're feeling. Thank you so much for sharing.

Lauren, Thank you for your kind words. This blog post was going to be all about using Tyvek for long-term storage of textile works. Of course, that was completely overshadowed and I wondered if I should allow it to be since Tyvek is so personal and moving on it's own. Everyone identifies with Tyvek, right? Sheesh. I so appreciate your taking the time to read and comment.
XO
Amy

Tyvek seems to be such a popular material. I have seen wondrous works of art made of the stuff, but your post is my introduction to its use to protect textiles. I was encouraged to find that the makers have thought about recycling too: http://www.dupont.com/products-and-services/packaging-materials-solutions/industrial-packaging/articles/recycling-information.html

Expressing deeply felt personal emotions I think is what makes for some of the most powerfully communicating work. Even if we don't all have children, we all have a mother (parents).

So wonderful to hear from you Olga! I will check out that Dupont link you shared -- thank you for that. And yes, we all have parents or parent figures and we have all certainly been children ourselves and can recognize an inner fear when we come face to face with one.
I wish you well,
Amy

Tyvek is an amazing, flexible medium - hey! Like wrapping houses in it isn't nifty?! But you putting kind of the house into fabric and 4 generations no less, much more amazing. Did I miss a place I can easily read the text?

Hi Suzanne,
Thanks for reading and commenting! If you click on the other blog posts (A history of fire, part 1 or A history of fire, part 2) there is a full image of the whole piece that you won't have to read sideways (it's also in my portfolio). It says "Mama, what in this house can catch on fire?" 9 times, the minimum number of times my son asked me this at age 4 before I realized he was trying to figure out the concept of spontaneous combustion, hence the title of the piece (that and my own spontaneous, combustion).
XO
Amy
ps: there are many Alaskan houses that are sheathed in Tyvek and considered "finished for now."

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Amy Meissner

Artist in Anchorage, Alaska, sometimes blogging about the collision of history, family & art, with the understanding that none exists without the other.​